Chapter 15 - THE DAUGHTER BEFORE JULIAN
Victoria was twenty-one when she gave birth to a girl named Anna.
The father was violent.
Victoria's own parents forced an adoption to avoid scandal.
Celeste helped her survive it.
For years, my mother and Victoria were friends.
That made the betrayal harder to understand.
Rachel found Anna through sealed records released under court order.
She was alive.
Fifty-two.
A school principal in Connecticut.
She did not want publicity.
She agreed to one private conversation with investigators.
Anna said Victoria contacted her three years earlier.
Not to apologize.
To ask her to sign away any potential claim against the Vance estate.
"She turned the worst thing that happened to her into the same weapon she used on everyone else," I said.
Rachel nodded.
Pain did not automatically make people kinder.
Sometimes it made them experts in where to hurt others.
Victoria was charged with fraud, conspiracy, evidence tampering, and attempted unlawful confinement.
Genevieve faced child-endangerment charges and assault allegations.
Her attorneys offered a settlement.
Public apology.
No contest on the civil claims.
Money.
In exchange, I would not release the videos.
I refused to use Maya's pain as media content.
But I also refused silence.
The evidence would go where it belonged: court.
Then Genevieve asked to meet me.
Against Rachel's advice, I agreed with lawyers present.
She looked smaller without cameras and couture.
"I hated you," she said.
"I know."
"You had him and didn't even want his world."
"That is not why you hit my child."
Her eyes filled.
"I was angry."
"At a five-year-old."
She looked away.
Then whispered, "Victoria told me Maya wasn't really Julian's."
I froze.
"What?"
"She said the trust only existed because Blackwood bought the paternity record."
I stood.
Another lie.
Or another secret.
By midnight, Rachel had ordered a certified DNA test.
The result came the next morning.
May you like
Julian was Maya's biological father.
But someone had already created a fake test saying he wasn't.
